9 Directors Who Could Direct The Hobbit (Mania.com)

By:Hanso Date: Thursday, June 03, 2010

Finding a director for The Hobbit is proving more difficult than killing Smaug. Sam Raimi went off to the World of Warcraft, Guillermo Del Toro has left the project and Peter Jackson as of right now ain’t happening. Being the fans of the book that we are, we want to see this film get done, preferably before Ian McKellan dies, so to help on the director search we have composed a list of possible candidates.

9. Spike Jonze

Notable Work: Being John Malcovich, Adaptation

Pros: Warner Bros. has a say on what goes down with The Hobbit and Mr. Jonze recently did Where The Wild Things Are for them. He showed he’s more than capable of adapting a children’s book and with him we know The Hobbit won’t turn into a CG fest.

Cons: Never done anything on the scale of The Hobbit. He’s also never been mainstream and a creative guy like him might not play well with others, especially if he won’t have much input like would be the case for The Hobbit since apparently the script and designs are already place.

8. Carl Rinsch

Notable work:The Gift commercial. Do yourself a favor and check it out HERE

Pro: Ridley Scott thinks the guy is the truth and wanted him to direct the new Alien movie. If he’s good enough for Sir Ridley he’s good enough for us.

Cons: Who the hell is Carl Rinsch? The guy has never directed a film, which makes it unlikely someone would trust such a huge franchise to him. Another thing to consider is that based on The Gift, Rinsch’s style is a bit too stylized and clean for The Hobbit.

7. Brad Bird

Notable Work:The Incredibles, The Iron Giant

Pros: The people at Pixar are geniuses and they usually only work with in house talent. Brad Bird was so good though that they brought him in, so you know he’s the goods. He can instill heart and intelligence into lighter fare and his work with computer graphics will come in handy should he be given a shot to direct The Hobbit.

Cons: No prior experience directing live action.

6. David Fincher

Notable Work: Se7en, The Game, Fight Club

Pros: He’s one of the best directors in the game today and his camera work is wicked. Remember Panic Room? Fincher had the camera going in and out of door locks, toasters and between floors all without cutting the shot? Brilliant.

Cons: His last two films (Zodiac & The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) have been long, slow paced and kind of boring, we don’t want that for The Hobbit.

5. Terry Gilliam

Pros: The man loves to play in fantasy films so he might as well take his talents to Middle Earth. Visually, The Hobbit would be amazing under Gilliam’s direction. Seriously, checkout Gilliam’s latest, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, the imaginarium sequences in that film are insane! Plus he has already made a movie about dwarfs so he has that going for him.

Cons: If Gilliam gets attached to The Hobbit the film will either bomb at the box office or end up not getting made but at least we can get a documentary detailing the failure of the film. His style is too damn weird and can leave you with a WTF just happened feeling.

4. Gore Verbinski

Notable Work:The Ring, Pirates of The Caribbean trilogy.

Pros: The Curse of the Black Pearl was great, it shows Verbinski can do adventure very well and knows how to add comedic moments to lighten the mood. Both traits would come in handy for The Hobbit.

Cons: The Pirate of the Caribbean films got progressively worse with each sequel, something that doesn’t bode well for The Hobbit Part 2.

3. Neil Blomkamp

Notable work:District 9

Pros: Neil has ties to Peter Jackson who championed him for the defunct Halo movie and helped him get District 9 made. It’s obvious that Jackson is high on the guy and the familiarity of them working together can only help The Hobbit. Blomkamp can also work on a budget and still deliver realistic looking top-notch special effects plus he knows his action.

Cons: Only one movie under his belt. He says he prefers small budget films where the studio won’t hamper his vision something that won’t happen if he takes on The Hobbit.

2. Steven Spielberg

Notable work: The man’s entire film career.

Pros: Spielberg has ties to Peter Jackson via their team up of Tin Tin and if they can work together in that they surely can do it for The Hobbit and unlike Spielberg’s last effort George Lucas can’t come anywhere near it so that’s a plus. More importantly he is Steven frakking Spielberg, a man that from A to Z can do it all and does it extremely well. What else do we really need to say? He is to directing what Don Draper is to advertising, genius.

Cons: There are no cons here my friend. You did read that we were talking about Steven Spielberg?

1. Alfonso Cuaron

Notable work: Children of Men, Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban

Pro: Cuaron is very close to Guillermo Del Toro who just exited The Hobbit. They have been known to bounce ideas off each other during the scripting phases of their films meaning it is almost a certainty that Cuaron has knowledge of the script and exactly what Peter Jackson is looking for. In the few films Cuaron has directed he has shown range, capable of handling small casts and films along with large ensemble casts special effects driven movies. He was also able to take over a franchise and remain true to the established world while at the same time stamping his own style to it.

Con: Hard to pick something against this cat, he’s clearly the best choice to take over the franchise. If we were to pick something it would have to be that as seen in his previous book to film adaptations, the man isn’t completely faithful to the source, a fact that may anger The Hobbit hardcore fans.